Does Santa Stand In for God? 

He sees you when you're sleeping,

he knows when you're awake,

he knows if you've been bad or good.

     Andree Seu Peterson takes on the question in WORLD magazine. She wonders if our children, who eventually discover we were "kidding" about Santa Claus, take us seriously when we tell them about God.

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   "Let children and adults alike be warned about pretenders to the role of God," she writes. In culture, they "masquerade as angels of light." 

   Then there is the "benevolent largess of government - whose end is to control our lives and make us say in adoration as men will in the last days, 'Who is like the beast?'" (Rev. 13:4) 

   "To God alone belongs such acclamation: 

'The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. 

Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, 

who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?'" (Psalm 113:4-6)

   "The One who gives good gifts, whose coach is not a flying sleigh 

but a swift cloud (Isaiah 19:1), will never give his glory to another."